


We Were Deceived

by Kaggath



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, SWTOR, Sith, Twi'lek, blatant disregard for medical fact for the sake of plot, new perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14705037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaggath/pseuds/Kaggath
Summary: Deceived, but from Eleena's perspective.





	1. Chapter 1

Coruscant glittered with life and vibrance, millions of gleaming facets to trillions of gems strolling through parks, hurrying to their homes…kissing their lovers goodbye. Speeders swept by going to places worth going, doing things worth doing. Coruscant was a living thing with its own pulse, but there were those who wanted to feel that pulse weaken under their fingertips. 

Incredible feats of architecture raised their praises skyward, and Eleena followed the unfamiliar structures with her gaze while she could. Beside her, the thundering gait of Malgus seemed impossibly loud. He strode haughtily through the public, untouchable. Eleena learned long ago to veil her emotions, but the guilt of what was to come threatened to drown her as she walked alongside him. It was so thick she could taste it. 

Guilt surrounded Eleena much the same as Malgus was steeped in hate, so deep neither of them were able to escape. It soon would be too late for them. She told herself over and over that she did what she had to do to survive. After being taken in by Malgus, she had no choice. 

No justification she gave herself silenced the terrors, waking or in sleep, that eventually became yet another part of her life set in duracrete. Nothing she did could be undone. For all her achievements and accomplishments in spite of her lot in life, for all her strength and talent she honed under the tutelage of a prodigy, she was completely helpless. Without a will of her own, she was merely a tool.

Except…

There were times when she could see…she could tell that Veradun truly cared for her. There would be no need to waste such valuable resources as time and instruction if not to show he cared. With his upbringing, the constant pressure of expectations from his family, from the Sith, from himself…would he ever have learned another way to show the sentiment? Would he even be able to identify it if pressed? 

Endearment, affection, love—useless distractions from the unending blind groping for what they convinced themselves was power. How many times had Eleena heard the Code in passing? One hundred? One thousand? She knew it as well as if it had been drilled into her as it was the apprentices on Korriban. And yet for all its repetition in her mind, she could not grasp how an intergalactic war, a means to no end, could be the lesson gleaned from their incantation.

Somehow, somewhere, a mistake was made. There was no other answer. But because of that mistake, that misinterpretation, this world would burn. Their steady march took them closer and closer to where that flame would be ignited. Eleena had to do something…had to make him understand. Eleena had to summon Veradun from Malgus and show him it was wrong, that there was still a chance for them to walk away. To have a life worth living.

Eleena could see Malgus entrenched in thought. His deep rooted beliefs overlaying the truth of what they planned to do. Perhaps in his eyes Coruscant was already burning. After the bloodied world of Korriban and the ferocious Dromund Kaas, Malgus was a pacing tuk’ata in a lavish palace. Angry, deadly, and completely out of place.

Bracing herself, Eleena spoke.

“What are you thinking of, Veradun?”

A whisper of the man inside the monster surfaced, before being swept away like dust.

“I am thinking of fire,” he said. She knew. Flames licked from inside his eyes. It was exactly as she feared, but she had to try.

Picking her words carefully, they walked a few more paces. A child, human, distracted Malgus while Eleena pondered the best way to approach. Sorrow welled deep inside her as she calculated. The child turned her innocent eyes away from the beast that was Eleena’s savior.

“This is a beautiful world,” Eleena probed. He had to see it, had to know. There were so many beings, so many opportunities. Coruscant was nothing like the world Malgus took her from, took her to. He had to see the difference in them. 

“Not for very much longer.” His certainty cut her deep. Not the cauterizing precision of a lightsaber, but the bloody, messy gash of a vibroblade. 

“Veradun…” she nearly choked on his name from the hidden tears inside her heart. She turned her face away before he could see. Could his Force feel the depths of her pain?

“You may speak your mind, Eleena,” Malgus said, but her mind was meters away with the human girl. If Eleena failed, the girl may die, or be scarred for life. 

Grappling to stay at the surface of the ocean of her sadness, Eleena could feel herself slipping down down down. Children were not an option for them, but Eleena couldn’t help but imagine a long haired daughter held tightly to Veradun’s broad chest, able to feel protected and secure as Eleena had not. Or a son, given gentleness his father never received. 

Every possibility died inside her. It was better that way. This was not a life for having children, and she had nothing worthy to give them. 

“When will the fighting end?” Eleena finally managed. 

“What do you mean?

“Your life is war, Veradun. Our life! When will it end? It cannot always be so.” He had to hear the desperation in her voice. Surely Eleena could get through to him. She saw him nodding, but instead of the recognition of their misdeeds she saw the infuriating “teacher” ready to dole out instruction on the nuances of the Dark Side.

“You choose to fight beside me, Eleena. You have killed many in the name of the Empire.” The sea of heartache boiled with rage. Eleena could feel it rising to her cheeks, acidic purple fury blooming before him.

“I have not killed for the Empire. I fight, and kill, for you. You know this! But you…you fight for the Empire? Only for the Empire?”Eleena’s fingers tingled. Stress darkened the edges of her vision.

“No. I fight because that is what I was made to do and the Empire is the instrument through which I realize my purpose. The Empire is war made manifest. That is why it is perfect.”

Everything was falling apart. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. It was all so very wrong. Eleena shook her head incredulously at his confident words. The words he was fed since the stirrings of the dark beast that lived inside him.

“Perfect? Millions die in its wars. Billions!” Many by her reluctant hand.

“Beings die in war. That is the price that must be paid.” Malgus thought this was an acceptable answer. Prices were paid from one’s own credits. Lives had more meaning that mere currency. What price could one put on a balmy wind, fresh water on one’s skin? The feeling of warmth beside one’s body as their lover breathed the deep breaths of sleep in security beside them?

More children followed obediently behind a being with the lighthearted step of one with infinite patience. Would they grow to be crumpled fodder trod by the infinite boot of war?

“The price for what? Why constant war? Why constant expansion? What is it the Empire wants…what is it you want?”

“Want is not the point,” Malgus sighed. “I serve the Force. The Force is conflict. The Empire is conflict. The two are congruent.” Nothing was getting through. Veradun gave Malgus too much, and Eleena’s hope wilted.

“You speak as if it were mathematics,” she all but spat.

“It is,” he insisted decisively.

Eleena was running out of ideas. Desperately, she taunted, “The Jedi do not think so.” 

“The Jedi understand the Force only partially. Some of them are even powerful in its use. But they fail to comprehend the fundamental nature of the Force, that it is conflict. That a light side and a dark side exist is proof of this.” Malgus completely missed the hypocrisy of his own words. Light and dark existed because of each other, not in spite of each other.

“Why?” Eleena demanded.

“Why what?” Malgus asked tiredly. Eleena could see exasperation creeping into his molten eyes.

“Why conflict? Why would the Force exist to foment conflict and death?”

“Because the survivors of the conflict come to understand the Force more deeply. Their understanding evolves. That is purpose enough.” Before she could point out the contradiction of a force within life existing only to cause death, he continued, “Conflict drives a more perfect understanding of the Force. The Empire expands and creates conflict. In that regard, the Empire is an instrument of the Force. You see? The Jedi do not understand this. They use the Force to repress themselves and others, to enforce their version of tolerance, harmony. They are fools. And they will see that after today.”

Deflating, the last of hope died in Eleena. She failed. 

They walked together in silence for a moment. The chatter and throb of Coruscant accused her of everything for which she was guilty. It was a physical thing, but stung worse than anything she had felt before. Eleena was no stranger to pain. To guilt and regret. It engulfed her and she was losing the will to fight it.

“Constant war will be your life? Our life? Nothing more?”

“I am a Sith Warrior,” Malgus said with fatal pride.

“And things with us will always be as they are?”

“Master and servant. This displeases you?” He knew it did. Malgus knew how she hated those words. It wasn’t a question, but a reminder. Eleena wouldn’t have it. Not today.

“You do not treat me as your servant. Not always,” she reminded him. Between the unorthodox skills instilled into her, and the tenderness of secret love he didn’t dare show in front of the Sith, she was hardly treated as a servant at all sometimes. He had elevated her beyond that stature, and in the same breath denied that was what he did.

“Yet a servant you are. Do not forget it.”

Once again pain and rage filled her. Just when she thought she had exhausted herself of emotion, Eleena felt it swell anew within her. Stopping, she stared directly into Malgus. Challenging him. Defying him.

“I know your nature better than you know yourself,” Eleena accused. She suppressed the urge to jab a finger into his chest to emphasize just how deeply she knew his heart. “I nursed you after the Battle of Alderaan, when you lay near death from that Jedi witch.” 

It was a terrible risk to speak of the Jedi like this, in the very hearth of their home. Eleena didn’t care.

“You speak the words in earnest—conflict, evolution, perfection—but belief does not reach your heart.”

Malgus grabbed her by the wrist and her heart exploded in dread. Instead of acting in violence, though, he pulled her close, draping an arm around her waist. Had she finally reached him? 

The light of the man she loved, Veradun, shone in his eyes. Swiping at his respirator, he revealed his lips, forever scarred by that fateful battle. Veradun brought his mouth to hers in hungry need. She kissed him back in equal agony, as if they had been separated for years. He saw, he had to have.

Pulling back for air Eleena gasped, only for Veradun to reclaim her mouth, unwilling to yet release the passionate kiss. Lightheaded as they finally parted, Eleena’s eyes fluttered open. 

“Perhaps you do not know me as well as you imagine,” he said as the past flickered across his face for the faintest moment.

“I think I do know you,” Eleena insisted defiantly. They smiled into each other before Malgus pulled away, checking his chrono.

No…

He received a message, replied, and received another. Silently, as he dutifully worshipped his Empire, Eleena shattered. 

“Come,” Malgus ordered before she could scream. It was over. Truly over. Eleena shut down, following obediently, forever a servant to his will. 

They were at the temple now. Statues rose from the grounds, looking down upon her. Eleena clamped down her emotions. If she allowed herself to feel any more it would destroy her beyond what the betrayal of her love had already done.  
If there was anything left. 

Eleena fell into step, into the role she had to play. She tensed, but did not fall out of step, as they approached the Republic soldiers that guarded the temple.

“Stop right there,” one of them demanded.


	2. Chapter 2

As the flames of rage swelled in Malgus, Eleena retreated further into herself. Through years of excruciating training her body learned to perform what was expected of it, a hollow shell with only a mist of her consciousness present. 

“I said stop!” the Republic soldier once again demanded of them. Lightyears away, Eleena could hear the stirrings of panic in his voice. 

Nobody could make Malgus stop.

“Do nothing. These are mine.” The arrogant words trickled down the black oil of his cloak, tossed haphazardly at her over his shoulder. Eleena’s body obeyed its command. 

“Who are you?”

The guard never got the closure of an answer. Everything happened too fast, all the sounds crushed into one symphony of chaos. A lightsaber, ignited, thrown, and recalled. Bodies opening. One of the men slammed against the wall of the Temple, extinguished upon impact.

All dead. Malgus hardly broke stride as he murdered them. Cut them down like pests.

Eleena’s dazed gaze swam to the ledge just above where she and Malgus would begin their invasion. Shae was there. Shae played her part—“The Mandalorian,” as Malgus called her. Eleena saw her nod in acknowledgement before slipping on her helmet and entering through a window on one of the uppermost levels of the Temple. Eleena was once again alone with Malgus.

Malgus and Veradun. The Mandalorian and Shae. Eleena and…? Who was it she became during these battles? Could whoever it was keep her alive this time? Never before had Malgus dragged her into something so bold, so dangerous, so absolutely impossible. 

Thundering ahead, a ravaging maelstrom in men’s clothes, Malgus led the way. The tiny raindrops of Eleena’s footsteps next to him pattered steady as a chrono. Everything seemed far away. Their shadows stretched before them as they passed the threshold into the holy building, black chasms that threatened to swallow them whole. 

From here, there was no return.

First, before Malgus destroyed their bodies and their temple, he desecrated the very sound of it. The supernatural volume of his existence clawed its way into every being around him. It filled the air, it robbed their souls. His boots cratered into the Temple. His excited draw of breath, amplified by his respirator, screamed out. 

Their presence made known, curious Padawans and wary Jedi peered at them from the ledges above. Several of them leapt down, forming a defensive half circle before Malgus and Eleena. Behind the six Jedi, another descended from a grand staircase. 

Malgus barreled forward towards them as the seventh Jedi swept fluidly into place. Dragged along by her invisible chains, Eleena surveyed the scene. More and more young Jedi-to-be turned their frightened eyes towards them. The pressure of the two factions built in the air. Within the Jedi Temple, Coruscant itself seemed to hold its breath. 

At the peak of the arc, the blond Jedi trained his eyes on Malgus. They stood as two inverse statues. Patience and rage, cruelty and compassion, the hate of love and the love of hate. Neither of them knew what fools they were.

Eleena saw the briefings and models with Malgus. She recognized the blond man as Ven Zallow. Eleena knew Malgus would seek him out, test himself against the best opponent available to him to prove his power. 

The Jedi Master stood as a pillar of antithesis. His eyes weren’t the hellishly gilded, predatory eyes of a Dark Side user. They weren’t sunken or hollow. Zallow stood as a protector, not an aggressor, but even so it was only a matter of perspective. The Jedi claimed to serve the galaxy, but Eleena never saw so much as their shadow in the Outer Rim. 

The Jedi Master stood as a pillar of antithesis. Eleena’s savior stood beside her, yet never once claimed to be the ultimate authority of good. Perfection, maybe, but not goodness. No matter what the Jedi claimed, they were just as much a danger to her as the Sith. The primal, instinctual part of her that propelled her to survive hated and distrusted the Jedi. They were a threat to her existence. 

As the Jedi circled them, caging them, Eleena pressed her back against Malgus. Now was not the time to wrestle with right and wrong, good and evil. Suppressing the doubts that tried to surface, she slowed her breathing. Focus. Fight. Survive.

The emptiness inside the Temple shattered with the beeping of Malgus’s chrono. The end finally began.

The Jedi around them ignited their sabers in unison. Falling into a ready stance, their bodies and minds and weapons trained on her and Malgus. Eleena would probably already be dead were it not for the dangling suspense in the air. That, and the suspicious, but ever growing whine of a ship far off course. 

Sweeping her eyes across her half of the protective circle, Eleena could see confusion and uncertainty creasing the corners in the eyes of the Jedi. She knew exactly what the sound was, counted the paces to a safe distance. Louder and louder the hijacked ship screamed. She could see it now, rampaging towards them like a rancor towards its prey. 

Grounding herself, Eleena shifted her stance. The ship was nearly to the entrance of the Temple. Her muscles coiled in anxious, dreadful anticipation. The screaming had already started. Scrambling alarm joined the sounds of the impending impact, the hum of lightsabers, and Malgus’s breathing.

The ship crashed through the Temple in an explosion of sound, lacerating the floors. Pillars fractured like ribs. Those who couldn’t escape the path of destruction were crushed. Smoke and dust and blood and fear tinged the air that finally swept through the hall. Fire from the explosion drank in the wind greedily. The vibrations of the ship charging towards them rattled Eleena’s joints.

Eleena knew the plan inside and out. Against Malgus’s wishes, Adraas was inside the metal carcass that finally crawled to a stop before her. She tensed, bracing for him, for the battle to come, for the inevitable bloodbath.

Wails of anguish and agony began, begging for answers and aid. Eleena knew neither would come. 

In a hail of metal, the hatch to the drop ship stabbed into the floor of the Temple. Inside, red lightsabers pierced the darkness as they ignited, revealing the Sith warriors within. Wounds crackling in a million directions, ready to draw ever more blood. Malgus threw back the hood of his cloak as if to hear it better.

The ignition of Malgus’s saber smiled as cruelly as he did.

The Jedi leapt away from Eleena and Malgus. From behind her, she heard one of them call out, “May the Force be with you all.” Drawing her blasters as she heard more lightsabers join the hive-like buzz of those already lit, Eleena glared at the ornate mask of Lord Adraas for a moment.   
Eleena could hear a stampede of boots behind her, charging Malgus and his Sith. 

“Stay near me,” Malgus ordered over his shoulder. 

“Yes,” Eleena felt herself say.

The Sith warriors exploded out of the drop ship, providing a war cry that supplemented what the Jedi would not. Malgus tore off his cloak and spearheaded the charge, making certain he collided with the Jedi well before Adraas.

Powerful cleaves, left right left, cut down the Jedi before them like jungle overgrowth. Malgus fought viciously single minded, carving a path to his destination, only stopping to return blaster bolts to those who had released them. Republic troops on an upper level appeared to join the fight.   
Following the path of the return, Eleena shot down two more. Malgus spoke of an ultimate clarity that came with war, but to Eleena it was a veil that fell upon her. Her body acted on its own accord to preserve itself. In many ways, through the passionate will to survive, she had died one hundred times over. 

Swept in the current of bloodlust, Malgus charged ahead of her. Eleena supplied cover fire, picking off Republic soldiers and suppressing the Jedi as best she could. Horrible, disgusting cracks and wails joined the symphony of war, the overwhelming knell of death.

Shut off from her emotions, Eleena couldn’t feel the fear she should have when the Zabrak woman advanced on her. Malgus clashed with a human Jedi several meters away. None of the Sith warriors cared for her wellbeing. She was alone in this fight. Training her blasters on the Zabrak, Eleena unleashed the first wave of their personal battle. 

Batting Eleena’s bolts aside like insects, the Zabrak continued her charge. She had incredible speed, but lacked accuracy. None of the reflected shots came close to Eleena. That shortcoming was the closest thing to an ally Eleena had in this fight. 

While distance was still on her side, Eleena studied the grip and motions of her opponent. The part of her mind that knew battle noted the efficiency of motion. While not even yet a Jedi, let alone a Master, the Zabrak knew to conserve energy until Eleena was within striking range. Without mastery of the saber, her mind was focused on protecting her body entirely instead of dual edge of barricade and barrage. 

Firing both high and low, Eleena tried to gain some sort of advantage. Despite her lack of accuracy in deflection, however, the Padawan had impeccable defense. Neither of them made a hit on each other, but soon Eleena would be in striking distance of the determined Zabrak’s lightsaber. Calculating, gauging her surroundings, Eleena prepared herself. 

With a few final steps, the Zabrak was upon her. She was so close Eleena could see the rough texture of her plain clothing. Shifting from her defensive sequences to attack, Eleena’s opponent slashed at her diagonally. Ducking down and following the inertia into a roll, Eleena fired from a crouch, hoping to connect a hit while the ungainly arc left the other woman’s body open to attack.

Once again the Zabrak woman fell into the defensive sequences she obviously knew well. Rising, Eleena continued to rain bolts on her opponent, but made no progress. She once again advanced on Eleena, taking no hits but ready to deliver yet another. Baring her teeth, Eleena tried to decipher from where she would attack.

Before she could, however, the air rippled and tore in a blast of power, and the Zabrak was gone. Crumpling against a column and onto the floor, she was already dead. Malgus had saved Eleena again.

There was no time for thanks. Reunited momentarily with Malgus, she took position to cover his back. Malgus grunted, pointing to where she must go. The Zabrak Padawan had been only one of many. Assessing the dangers around her, studying the pulse of the carnage, Eleena kept the beings who would take the Padawan’s place at bay with a spray of blaster bolts.

The Jedi prioritized the Sith in combat. Eleena didn’t register as enough of a threat when more powerful beings were present to draw aggression to themselves. She used the new advantage she found to better position herself. Hearing the horrific sizzle of electricity, smelling the ozone and burning flesh, Eleena saw a terrible storm erupting from Malgus’s hand as he slayed three opponents at once. Eleena used the now clear path to take position, firing countless times as she went.

Studying the onslaught, she took in what detail she could from behind a stone pillar. Bodies littered the floor. Sith, Jedi, Republic soldiers…humans, Rodians, Togruta, Kel Dor…Eleena noted the packs they ran in, the styles they employed, the targets they set. She identified Malgus in the center of the chaos, also studying the roiling masses of bodies.

In the years of fighting in Malgus’s wars, Eleena had learned through terrible pain and horror to route information in battle to the part of her who couldn’t feel. Emotions on the battlefield had nearly killed her before. To preserve herself, Eleena couldn’t allow the mistake of remorse until after the day was won…if she survived. 

Malgus spotted her surveying. Their eyes met. Could he recognize the Eleena he knew wasn’t there, as she saw the duality of Malgus and Veradun? Did he see the woman that surfaced to keep his Eleena safe? Or was he truly that blinded by his single-minded bloodlust? His single mind was still focused on her, and Eleena felt herself wink to him, motioning to the incoming Republic soldiers. 

As she pressed her assault, she found Shae spinning, delivering divine fire to the soldiers. Malgus found new victims, and the havoc continued. Eleena saw, even as he ended more and more lives, he only grew more energized. Gleaming in his eyes was a bottomless desire. He was searching for Zallow.

Malgus’s Force-augmented scream rocked Eleena to her core. It impacted her like a physical blow, and she could see he was completely submerged in the tides of blood he spilled. She could also see Adraas readying an attack on Zallow, trying to steal Malgus’s “glory.” 

Malgus saw it, too.

Zallow shoved Adraas away with the Force. Eleena took the opening to try to distract the Jedi Master so Malgus would have a clean shot at him. Eleena could hear Malgus screaming, a raging beast that roared and stalked toward the Jedi.

Zallow’s attention was on Malgus. Attempting to catch the Master off guard, she opened fire on the Jedi. He turned on her instantly, faster than her eyes could follow, returning her attack before blasting her body effortlessly against the pillar, through it, an into silent nothingness.


	3. Chapter 3

Dipping nebulously into and out of consciousness, Eleena savored the warmth and comfort of their bed. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay in this bed forever with Veradun and never fight again, never end another life and finally live hers. 

Faintly, she could feel him running his fingertips from the crown of her lekku down to her bare shoulder, drawing her to wakefulness. Eleena couldn’t open her eyes, but she saw Veradun through his touch. The slow, even waves of his breath came cushioned by his respirator. Eleena felt the cold, compact machine he wore to sleep brush against her skin as he pressed his forehead to her. 

Slowly waking, Eleena tried to stir. Her body still wouldn’t react, and concern tinted her awareness. Veradun hummed deep in his chest as he wrapped an arm around her. Eleena could feel her temperature rising, but still she couldn’t move. 

Frozen lead clogged her veins, but Eleena’s skin was on fire. Veradun’s grip around her tightened painfully, blossoming scorching wounds on her chest and shoulder. What was happening…why was he doing this? She couldn’t breathe. 

Tighter, tighter he constricted her. Eleena’s skin screamed.

“Eleena. Open your eyes. Eleena.”

Eleena struggled to lift the thick, sticky curtains on her eyes. Finally she awoke, but their room was burning acidic orange and black, red and yellow. Resisting against the smoke and blood she smelled, she tried to call out to him.

“Veradun…”

Eleena’s eyes came to focus on an angry fist. Beyond it she saw crushed stone, crushed bodies, crushed peace. The fog swirling in her mind began to crumble like the Jedi Temple. She was on Coruscant, not aboard Valor. Eleena didn’t know how she got here…she couldn’t remember what happened. All she felt was an overwhelming sense of failure and dread, and burning. 

Connected to the fist that slowly opened like a carnivorous plant was Malgus. His expression was painted in one thousand shades of hate and concern and anger and love. Even in her stupor Eleena read him. Behind him Eleena saw Sith warriors caught in the rapture of their victory—including Lord Adraas. Eleena felt a disappointed sneer pulling at her pain-strained face.

“Can you stand?” Malgus tried to sound disinterested in front of the Sith.

“Yes. Thank you, Master,” Eleena felt the words slip from her lips as she dipped her hand into his. He pulled her to her feet quickly, roughly. Clenching her jaw to keep from crying out, Eleena staggered dizzily into him. Silver stars swam erratically in her vision as her nerves burned. 

Swaying, punch-drunk, Eleena couldn’t catch her breath. She felt like she’d been set on fire from the inside out. With every gasp, her chest exploded in agony. Bitter tears welled behind her eyes as she felt rather than heard Malgus speak. The deep vibrations stung. 

Eleena saw Adraas’s silver tongue slipping poison into the air around her, sharp eyes slashing back and forth between her and Malgus. Malgus allowed his grip on her to soften as Adraas slinked away, catlike and angry. He cut his path through the temple towards his destination like a laser. Efficient. Clinical. 

Eleena’s hearing came and went, hollow white noise swallowed by the Empire’s planetside bombardment swallowed again by white noise. Nausea swelled wetly in her gut as Malgus turned them towards the gaping wound in the Temple’s entrance, looking out on the destruction. Eleena’s head spun faster than light.

“Go see it, Master,” Eleena whispered, trying to send Malgus away. Malgus valued strength. Strength was nothing she could posture now. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Weak…broken…lost.

“It is your victory. I am fine. Go,” she insisted, pleaded.

Without a word, Malgus left her to see to the destruction. In time, many of the Sith followed, basking in the flames of brutality. Eleena was left behind among the dead in the Cartusion whale fall of the Temple. Shaking, she limped to where the fight began and wrapped herself in Malgus’s discarded cloak. 

The black cascade of fabric dragged behind her like the train of a dress, picking up duracrete dust and smearing blood across the floor. Eleena doubted Malgus would mind, doubted he would even come back for it. Eleena walked the aisle of ruin alone. Malgus was married to war.

Tenderly, Eleena winced into the drop ship in search of a medkit. The gutted ship held nothing but the lingering miasma of hatred. There was nothing for her. Claiming the metal shell as refuge to block the sight of the ocean of bodies, Eleena collapsed to the floor, biting her lip as she silently wept into Malgus’s sleeve. The shuddering heaves of her tears ripped at her wounds, feeding the beast of pain inside her.

 

Exhausted, dripping agony, Eleena allowed her face to dry. She didn’t know how long she retreated into the ship, but if she stayed there was no guarantee of safety. She needed to dress her wounds. Eleena could see the edges of them, black and empty like a collapsed star trying to swallow her whole from the inside.

Rising, Eleena let the damp cloak slip from her shoulders into a stygian pool on the floor. As she exited the ship a member Imperial Medical Corps—presumably—approached her. He had gray hair and gentle eyes. Eleena didn’t recognize him. Eleena didn’t trust him.

“I’ve been, ah, instructed to treat you, erm…” he trailed off. The human couldn’t meet her eyes. Eleena needed to find Malgus. Lips pursed in an ill-suppressed grimace, Eleena raised her chin and marched away from the stuttering medic.

Eleena could hear the doctor pleading behind her, but her attention no longer focused on him.

Coruscant burned before her.

The Empire smelted the precious world into yet another weapon, smoldering and tainted, and she had been part of it. Screams carried on the hot wind. Fires burned. Beings ceased. The carnage within the Temple was but a single drop of blood in the tides of ichor that crashed around her.  
Malgus stepped between her and the terrorizing scene.

“Go with the doctors,” he commanded. “There’s an Imperial medical ship, Steadfast, in orbit with the rest of the cruiser fleet. Await me there. I will come when I am finished here.” 

Eleena’s breath came in waifish panting. Beyond the magma of torment that claimed her body, panic threatened to seize her. She didn’t want to be separated from Malgus by these strangers. Judging from his babbling and pleading, the medic feared Malgus, but did he fear him enough? Would the threat of punishment at the hand of Malgus be enough to keep him from putting her in danger? 

“I do not require care, Master,” she lied.

“Do as I command,” the voice of Veradun surfaced gently. Eleena looked into his eyes, into the hidden softness that existed only for her. Veradun wouldn’t harm her, or let harm come to her. Swallowing hard, deciding to trust in him, she accepted the aid.

The older man who came to retrieve her tenderly guided her aboard the transport. Surrounded by humans, Eleena secured a vise to her expression. She would not reveal the extent of her injury in the heart of this untrustworthy lot. 

The transport filled, and they exited, breaching the atmosphere into the unyielding eternity of space.

 

Eleena’s knuckles ached. It seemed ridiculous for the dull embers of pain to even register in her mind on top of everything else, but they ached all the same. Eleena felt the uncomfortable whisper of a cushion on her chair she gripped so tightly her knuckles bleached. She felt time dripping slowly like a melting icicle. Most of all, Eleena felt fear. 

She heard Adraas. He was uninjured. There was no reason for him to be here, and yet his pompous, nasal voice carried even to her damaged hearing. He spoke as if talking around a mouth full of blood.

It was no use trying to blend in with the humans. If Adraas was searching for her, he would inevitably find her. The hazy, swimming memory of his encounter with Malgus after the battle surfaced. She had been unable to hear the conversation, but she knew from Adraas’s twisted, scheming expressions it had to do with her. 

In her years with Malgus, it seemed Adraas was always somewhere off to the side, probing, instigating, vying for a better position. Eleena crossed paths with the razor sharp Sith on multiple occasions, but Veradun was always nearby. Today, she was alone.

Adraas billowed into the waiting area like toxic smoke. His fingers wrapped slowly around the doorway like the legs of a cave insect. His eyes meandered the broken beings before him before feigning an unnecessary flourish of surprise. Eleena watched him with a carefully neutral expression.

“What is a Twi’lek doing in here?” the barely sheathed claws of his voice drawled. Stopping a harried medic, Adraas repeated his question. 

“How did a Twi’lek get in here? We aren’t running a charity you know. Remove her.” Adraas punctuated the statement sweeping his fingers through the air as if he were brushing dust away. 

“The ah…we have orders by…you see, Lord Adraas,” the medic floundered, trying desperately not to look antsy to resume sewing troops back together like dolls. Juggling medical supplies with his datapad, he tried to pull up the information.

“You there, alien, come along,” he contemptuously addressed Eleena as if he didn’t know who she was. “We have troops that require medical attention, you can’t stay here.” 

Eleena didn’t recognize anyone aboard Steadfast but Adraas. If even one of the crew of Valor were here…

It wouldn’t make any difference. Adraas was a Lord, and he had Steadfast under his jeweled thumb. It would take a voice that outweighed his to save her. It would take the voice of Darth Malgus to override his authority.

Malgus said he would come for her. Where was he? Could he not sense the danger she was in?

The humans around her began to shift uncomfortably, from more than just their wounds. The mass of Adraas’s presence pressed down on them all. For all her training, this was not a situation she could fight her way out of. Drawing her shoulders back, sitting up straighter despite her wounds, Eleena tried to build a guise of confidence around herself. 

“I am here by order of Darth Malgus, Lord Adraas.” Eleena subtly emphasized the titles, trying to emulate Imperial disdain.

“She’s obviously delusional,” Adraas said in stride, tone edging on boredom. “Sedate her.”

Adrenaline poured into Eleena like boiling acid. The awareness of her pain dulled as she shot out of her chair…but where would she go? She didn’t know Steadfast like she knew Valor. Pushing the doubt down, she ran from the room. Adraas made no move to stop her, but as she passed Eleena saw the cruel smile he wore so easily creeping pointedly across his face. 

Escaping into the hall, Eleena collided with a broad chested medic that wore a matching smirk. Adraas tricked her into fleeing to where there would be no witnesses. She couldn’t run, couldn’t draw her weapons, couldn’t talk her way out of it. She was as good as dead. 

Her last thought wracked her in pain not in her body, but her heart.

I’m sorry…Veradun…


	4. Chapter 4

“Stand down, soldier,” the unfamiliar voice cut through the swirling unconscious consciousness.

“She’s in shock,” another voice, more distant…

The haze smeared away slowly. She had a blaster in one hand, the thick wrist of a Republic soldier in another. Beings surrounded her…her…who was she?

Littered around her were chunks of buildings, chunks of bodies, some living some dead. Breathing raggedly, she looked down at the stony face of the human soldier. He wasn’t afraid, but he should be. Memory after memory impacted in her brain. She was Eleena. She served the Imperial general Darth Malgus. She was injured, surrounded by Republic citizens. Thrashing her gaze frantically around, she identified several white and blue uniforms…nurses?

She was at a hospital. 

The Republic soldier once again drew her attention.

“Stand down. They’re not here, you’re safe.” He looked into her intensely, but his words came gently. Eleena silently commended him for being able to supply the compassionate delivery with a knee in his chest.

The crowd didn’t realize she was Imperial, Eleena realized sluggishly. In an attempt to better blend in, Eleena wore armor she found in a forgotten janitorial closet; an artifact of the day the Empire reclaimed Korriban. An artifact of the day Malgus cut down his Master, Vindican. It was considered trash and stowed away, and it had probably just saved her life.

The beings around her thought she was a Republic soldier, injured in a battle to protect their freedom. Eleena couldn’t let them find out the truth.

Without a word, she released the soldier and stood, offering a hand to help him up in false camaraderie. 

“No need to act so tough,” he chuckled as he stood. “You did good, soldier. Let’s get you inside.”

He had no idea what she did. 

Eleena felt herself swaying. She was exhausted. The soldier guided Eleena’s arm around his shoulder, leading her to the doorway. Eleena sucked in a hiss through her teeth as the skin across her chest reignited in pain. 

“Transport brought ya here,” the soldier began to explain as they entered the white and silver prison. “Said they found you unconscious. Must have been a hell of a fight,” he said, glancing over to her. Eleena nodded vacantly. 

A group of beings huddled in the entryway. A Togruta struggled with her composure as her human companion wept into her chest. A friend? A lover? Her hair stuck to her face and her knuckles bleached as she pulled the Togruta closer. Eleena turned away from the scene. It had been a long time since the threat of tears had stung inside her throat.

The lobby was a microcosm of the waiting rooms and hallways. Beings of all ages and species gathered to give or receive treatment. A doctor, an Iridonian Zabrak with tired eyes and a carefully starched posture, corralled volunteers to focus the relief effort. Eleena’s world was Sith and humans, and everyone else. She tried not to dwell on it.

The soldier began to ask her questions. Questions any good Republic soldier would know by heart. Eleena did not plan for this contingency, didn’t have a story, so she stayed silent. You can’t get caught in a lie if you never say a word. 

The hospital filled around her. Minor injuries were treated in the waiting rooms as pools of beings cared for one another. The more serious cases…Eleena’s consciousness was still thick, time seemed slow as her eyes followed the paths of those less fortunate. 

“Flash burn, confusion…possible concussion. She got a nasty one, but no broken bones it seems.” Eleena heard the soldier relaying the crude information of her status to a pair of nurses, one Rodian and one human, as he helped ease her down into a bed. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be getting this treatment. Eleena felt guilt rise up in her throat like bile. 

“Good work out there,” he said as he left. Eleena struggled not to crumple under the weight of the undeserved kindness.

The Rodian, summoned to help in another room, spouted medical jargon Eleena couldn’t understand over his shoulder while the human busied herself with Eleena’s wounds. Her hair flashed orange, mirroring the burning sky. Dark circles dripped under her eyes, but the woman’s hands held steady as she dressed the caverns in Eleena’s flesh. 

Eleena only had a vague awareness of what was going on. Nothing made sense, and grasping at a train of memory was like trying to catch smoke with her hands. Everything slipped away the harder she tried. Everything came to her in bits and pieces.

Sometime in her daze, Eleena awoke to another being brought into her room. This façade wouldn’t last forever. Eleena had to think. She closed her eyes, pretending to rest.

Adraas. Adraas was behind this. Of course. That he showed his hand to her proved he knew he would get away with whatever he planned with this power grab. Eleena knew for whatever reasons he had, he needed her alive. He could have dumped her anywhere planetside, out the airlock, into a garbage compactor…anything would have been easier than bringing her to a hospital. 

If he needed her alive, but away from Veradun…then what? Would he be coming back for her to use her as leverage? 

While she was being treated in the hospital, surrounded at all times by Republic citizens, there was no way she could contact Malgus. That he hadn’t tried to contact her either showed he must not have yet been to Steadfast. Eleena felt her cheek twitch at the thought. When would he tire of gazing into the fire?

As long as the staff believed she was an injured soldier, Eleena would be safe. Unless, of course, they tried to reunite her with her “comrades.” Considering the constant noise of ever increasing beings in need of treatment, that wasn’t likely any time soon. They were too busy. But for how long?

A thought struck her like cold lightning. 

What if Malgus…didn’t come back for her? The threat of loss gripped her throat, and she felt ashamed that she imagined it. He would come back. He had to. He loved her, he wouldn’t just abandon her.

Right?

Frantic wailing severed her thoughts.

“My daughter…please help! My daughter!” A human woman ran down the hall, pleading. She was only visible for an instant, but Eleena took in every detail of the small body she carried.

Long, dark hair. Vacant eyes that once held the light of innocence.

Eleena heard her begging, heard the nurses explaining the situation to her. The lack of room. Eleena began disconnecting herself from her bed. The Rodian nurse from before hurried in, trying to stop her. Eleena felt her glacial expression fall on the shorter man.

“Tell them there is a bed open,” she instructed him. He only urged her to return to her bed. Eleena didn’t listen. Between the medicine and her own indifference to her pain, she brushed past the Rodian to the hall without showing so much as a shadow of the misery she felt.

The hospital overflowed. During her scheming, more and more poured in, desperately in need. 

“This way, Ma’am,” Eleena guided the woman to the room she left for them. The Rodian nurse looked between Eleena and the girl helplessly before tenderly opening the bed to her. The girl’s head lolled loosely to the side, and Eleena turned away. She couldn’t handle seeing any more.

Returning to the hallway, Eleena pressed her back against the white and silver wall. Against the stark, clinical sterility of the hospital it was easy to see just how much blood the Republic lost.

“You haven’t been cleared for discharge.” The red headed nurse scolded her gently.

“She needs it more than I do,” Eleena tried the icy face of command, but it was lost to the fire of the woman. She wouldn’t budge. Eleena smiled bitterly. The human’s durasteel will must serve her well here. 

“I can squeeze you in somewhere on the third floor. If we think you’ll abscond the building we’ll have to restrain you. I don’t want to have to do that,” the nurse said plainly. Her eyes flickered to Eleena’s throat for the briefest of glimpses between the threat. 

Eleena didn’t think she had any fight left in her anyway.

 

The third floor was much the same story as the first, but with a lower density of bodies. That said nothing for how packed her room was. The red haired nurse brought her to a room twice the size of her previous one, with twice as many beings. The bulk of the relief effort coagulated towards the bottom of the hospital with most of the severe cases staying within arm’s reach. Most of them.

Eleena’s eyes splashed from one broken body to another. Unlike the first floor, spilling over with beings piled into the waiting areas and halls, here everyone was lined up as straight and neat as a cemetery. Supplies spread thin, Eleena saw patients hooked to medical equipment manually. 

It was unbearable to look at. Before her like a bloated corpse was the monument to Malgus’s achievements, a planet burning in effigy to the perceived bastardization of his Force. But the one who bore witness to it was a monument to his other half. The antithetical kindness that was woven between his cruelty. It had been a long time since Eleena wondered why he chose to spare her, to train her. To love her.

“Do you remember how you got here?” the nurse asked as she connected Eleena to the equipment, snapping Eleena out of her trance. The sting of needles and tubes taped down might have registered in a faraway part of Eleena’s mind. She watched indifferently as the nurse pierced and prodded and readjusted her like a doll.

“I was brought by a transport,” Eleena recited. The nurse’s gaze seemed to flicker as Eleena spoke again. Was she avoiding looking at Eleena’s scar? Was Eleena’s accent slipping through? Could the nurse suspect who she really was?

“Do you have anyone on planet we can contact to take you home?” she asked. Eleena couldn’t locate any suspicion in the inquiry.

“No,” Eleena whispered. There was nobody.


	5. Chapter 5

Night fell on the frightened planet. Eleena still heard nothing from Veradun. Dread simmered inside her as she tried and failed not to imagine the worst. She drew strength from remembering the best.

Eleena thought of Veradun to cut herself off from the suffering around her. She imagined him before the Dark Side ravaged his body, before the Jedi nearly killed him on Alderaan, before he fully embraced the monster he became. He once was a handsome man, with a strong chin and, when nobody but Eleena was looking, a charming smile. That smile was but one of a thousand hidden gems of the man she loved.

Eleena imagined him as she first met him. She thought of the first time he kissed her, and the time he taught her to shatter a man’s femur. She remembered the times they ate together, and the times they slept together. She remembered his arm wrapped around her as he dreamed, clutching her to him as if he was protecting something precious. He may not be able to admit it, even to himself, but Eleena was precious to him. 

She knew.

Malgus valued strength, so Eleena became strong. She enjoyed carving herself into something the universe told her she could not be. For everything she heard in life that she could not do, Veradun helped her realize she could. He protected her, he supported her, and he loved her. Eleena wanted to hear him say it. Needed to.

The hospital lurched around Eleena and her heart dropped. Was the Empire resuming bombardment? The explosions eventually gave to sirens in the day. No other heaves threatened the foundations, but Eleena was too far from the window to fully see Coruscant. She didn’t want to leave her bed, for fear of tempting the red haired nurse to make good on her promise to restrain her, and so Eleena waited and listened.

Sounds of fear bubbled up from the floors below. Was it a Sith? Had Adraas finally returned to finish the job? Heavy footfalls and words swirled into her room, but Eleena could decipher neither. Gripping her sheets with the arm that was not stabilized, Eleena braced herself for who would walk through the door. 

Relief misted her eyes and soothed her pulse. 

“Veradun,” she breathed.

She couldn’t help but think of her first day aboard Valor. Her wounds were a little more desperate this time, but deeper, too, was his care for her. Veradun cupped her cheek and Eleena leaned into his familiar touch. She could map the callouses on his hands like a star chart. 

“You will be treated aboard my ship. In proper facilities.” Veradun made his promise as he disconnected Eleena from the equipment. He was gentle with her, but anger flared across his face as a male voice behind him called out, attempting to stop him. The red haired nurse from before interjected, and Eleena silently thanked her for it. 

“Can you walk?” Veradun murmured down to Eleena even as he scooped her into his arms. 

“I can walk…” 

He continued out into the hallway with her in his arms. Seeing the cataclysm of broken souls around her stung Eleena’s heart. As Veradun walked Eleena counted doors. She saw countless bodies stuffed into rooms like hers, and as they passed the room she was originally in she saw no being she recognized. 

Eleena buried her face into Malgus’s chestplate. Miserably, she wished he wasn’t wearing it.

Not that she could cry into it either way.

They neared the exit. Eleena looked up into him, searching for the seed of confidence she needed. Veradun was somewhere else, somewhere far away. 

“You are thoughtful,” Eleena tried to pull him back with a gentle whisper.

“I am thinking of geometry. Of squares and circles.”

“That’s an odd train of thought,” Eleena worried, thinking back to her accusation of his treating his view of the Force as mathematics.

“Perhaps not as odd as you think,” he responded, still distracted. 

They exited the facility. The entrance looked as if the war started all over again with the hospital as an epicenter. 

“What—what happened here? To these people? It was not like this when I arrived!” Malgus supplied nothing. Eleena remembered the tremor she felt just before he arrived. Disappointment and sadness tainted the elation of being rescued. 

“They are afraid of you…” Eleena saw their wide eyes. Saw how they cowered, hunched in terror and pain. Eleena saw speeders, crumpled and upturned like dead sea life. 

“They should be,” growled the hate filled voice of Darth Malgus. 

The door to the transport shut behind them like the lid of a sarcophagus, and the waxy light of the street gave way to darkness.

“Take us to Valor,” Malgus demanded, Eleena still in his arms. He took her to a couch on the transport and tucked her under a blanket, but Eleena wasn’t shivering from the cold.

Trying to draw Veradun back out, to banish Malgus for just a little longer, she pressed her hand onto his, pinning it to her as she spoke.

“There is gentleness in you, Veradun,” she insisted. Malgus was not gentle. Malgus scattered the beings outside the transport like dry leaves. Veradun could be gentle, but he could forget, too, that gentleness existed in him.

He ripped his hand from her, standing suddenly.

“If you ever call me Veradun in public again I will kill you. Do you understand?” 

Eleena pushed too hard, too fast, and Veradun dissipated like mist.

“Why are you saying this?” How could he say this? How could he be so cruel to her? Why would he bother to rescue her if only to treat her this way? He loved her, she knew it. He cared for her and she could prove it. How could he be so volatile to her after everything they had been through, everything he had given her?

“Do you understand?” The voice that came out of the man before Eleena wasn’t Veradun. Wasn’t even Malgus. Whoever he was struck a fear into Eleena she hadn’t felt in a long time. If she met him then she’d cower, beg, plead…placate, surrender. 

That was not who she was any more. That Eleena was dead.

“Yes! Yes! But why are you so angry?” Eleena screamed back. She stood. She held her ground. Her physical pain was but a shadow’s kiss to her inner turmoil. Eleena worked hard, devoting the prayer of blood, sweat, and tears for years to Veradun, and to Malgus. Whatever came of this skirmish, she would not stand down.

“Why?” she demanded.

“You must do as I ask, Eleena…please…” Eleena couldn’t identify the emotion in Malgus’s voice. Or perhaps it was Veradun’s. He had changed so many times, so quickly, she didn’t know how to respond. 

Continuing to fight would only reignite the barbaric brute that kindled the icy terror she held at bay. 

“I will,” she gave him, “Malgus.” He could try to discard his name, but she knew. She knew who he was. She knew no matter how much Malgus tried to kill him, Veradun was there. In her heart, she would never let that part of him die.

Looking into him, Eleena traced the face she knew so well. Feeling the chasms gouged into his skin beneath her fingertips she wondered if the man could even feel pain. Or at least, in the sense that most did. She resigned herself to her loss tonight.

“I love you, Malgus,” Eleena tried the name in her mouth. It lacked the eloquence of her lover’s true name, but for the moment it was all she could be allowed. Gently pulling away the respirator he hid behind so she could watch his mouth and mind she asked, “Do you love me?”

Hesitation and uncertainty stalled his lips. Hesitation and uncertainty were not things Malgus displayed often. Eleena saw him grappling with himself, struggling. She understood struggle, inner turmoil. She understood everything he couldn’t say—or wouldn’t—that caught in his throat.

“You don’t have to answer,” Eleena said. Pressing her forehead to his chest she whispered, “I know that you do.”


	6. Chapter 6

Malgus turned away from her to stare out a viewport as they broke through the atmosphere. The exit fires burned around him like a flaming baptism. Wearily, Eleena sank back into the couch and retrieved the blanket she threw away in her outburst to wrap around herself like she did Malgus’s cloak earlier that day.

Had it really only been one day? Eleena felt like she had been awake for weeks. 

She watched Malgus, tracing his silhouette with her gaze. Whatever plagued his mind had its fingers rooted deep. Eleena saw him clenching and unclenching his fists unconsciously. The flames of the atmosphere gave to the infinite blackness of space. Malgus all but disappeared into it.

“Darth Malgus,” the pilot’s clipped imperial tone cut through the air, “Darth Angral wishes to speak to you.”

Malgus’s fists clenched again. His gaze wandered to Eleena. See nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing. She looked once more out the viewport, becoming nothing. 

“Put him through,” Malgus growled.

If Adraas was a vibroblade, Angral was a needle. As his figure illuminated the compartment in a pale blue, Eleena watched from her peripheral vision. Angral was sharp, sleek, precise. 

“My Lord,” Malgus’s voice sounded unusual, strained.

“Darth Malgus,” Angral’s words dripped from his lips. “I see you have recovered your…companion. I am pleased for you.”

So Angral knew as well. Calculating possible encounters by his diction and enunciation, Eleena tried to piece together what she could about what happened while she and Veradun were separated. Was Adraas the instigator, vying for a chance to take the title of Darth? Or was it Angral, using Adraas’s face to obscure his machinations?

Angral ordered Malgus to command the blockade, disallowing him to return to Coruscant’s surface. For a man of Malgus’s capabilities, it was a menial task at best. Carefully masking her suspicions, Eleena stayed stoic. Ornate. Invisible. A piece of furniture, overlooked, but cunning in her silence.

Eleena needed to tell him what happened aboard Steadfast, but now was not the time. She wouldn’t risk drawing any unnecessary attention to herself. She would play the serving girl peeking at the sabacc cards until it was time to whisper into Malgus’s ear.

Approaching Valor, Eleena was ready to be somewhere familiar. Malgus led her to the med bay, and the pulse of the familiar ship brought her into reality. She found sanctuary within the walls of the cruiser’s metal belly. A cold, sterile comfort.

 

 

Malgus couldn’t pace. Every motion followed his train of thought, Eleena could see, and as soon as one direction gained momentum, another pulled him towards it. Eleena could see him seething, but had no idea how to right what was wrong. 

After finally returning to Valor and receiving treatment Eleena was stuck in the medical numbness, physically and emotionally. She woke, not sure when she came to their shared quarters, to Malgus wearing trenches into the floor. She followed his path blankly, unnoticed, while he fretted. 

Pulling her body out of the bed as if it were wet sand, she approached him. One arm still nestled close to her body, Eleena was vaguely aware of the bandaging. Malgus looked down to her. Eleena could see exhaustion clouding his gaze. He hadn’t slept since they arrived.

Eleena trailed her fingertips down his arm, into his hand before tugging at the thick, black glove of his uniform. Malgus allowed it, and first one and then the other glove found their homes. Eleena’s body moved of its own will as her empty mind fumbled to catch up. The air was dreamlike, thick, like reality abandoned them, sinking them into a pocket away from the universe. 

Grabbing his hand, Eleena kissed his calloused palm before pressing it to her cheek and looking up into his eyes. His bloodshot, hateful yellow eyes. Ease did not creep into his gaze, but likewise he did not move away from her. Eleena unlaced her fingers from his to worry at the fastenings of his cape. Malgus shrugged from her touch, turning away. Eleena’s hand hovered in the air for a second before falling lifelessly to her side.

Eleena closed her eyes, breathing deep through her nose. The wounds across her chest echoed as a distant sting. Swallowing hard, Eleena turned to return to bed.

“I do not require care.” His lie mirrored hers, Eleena planetside on Coruscant and Malgus high within the stars. Stubborn man. Even as he claimed so, Malgus began to remove his armor. Eleena watched with dampened curiosity as he shed the heavy layers. Dropping an issue instead of barreling headlong into it until it died was not like Malgus. 

Malgus set his firey glare on her a second before continuing to disrobe. His bodysuit clutched at his formidable form like sorcery: black as pitch, almost as if it were not there at all. Merely an imagined barrier between them. Eleena watched as he rolled his shoulders, stretching his chest. Curiosity kindled to interest.

Without his armor Malgus was at his most vulnerable. Only Eleena saw him this way. The softness of his padding feet striding to her in comparison to the heavy boots that woke her were like teardrops after a raging storm. 

“I do not require care,” he repeated. The quiet stress on the first word said everything he would not, could not. He ran a thumb over her cheek. With his free hand, Malgus removed his respirator. Eleena felt her eyes ghosting trails across his scarred face, exposed and unyielding. The eternal grimace of his left lip shocked other beings. Beings that had not spent weeks dressing and redressing the carved flesh with tender hands as Malgus spat blood.

Malgus cradled Eleena’s neck and pressed his butchered mouth to hers. His touch lit a fire in her veins. Malgus pressed forward, guiding Eleena to sit on the edge of the bed before taking station behind her. As he ran circles between her shoulders with his thumbs Eleena laughed inwardly at the absurdity of it all. If anyone found out about the secret gentleness inside him, Malgus would kill them.

Malgus was terrible at giving backrubs, but Eleena savored the touch anyway. Relaxation came not from him working through the knots tied in her shoulders, but from her internal softening as the forbidden lover she lived for surfaced. Without the aid of his respirator, Malgus’s breath came in husky gasps that crashed on her neck like waves.

Melting to his touch, Eleena wished it could always be like this. They could run away to some little nowhere planet, somewhere away from the Jedi and the Sith and their war. She and Malgus could live out the rest of their days in each other’s arms. It was a foolish fantasy, Eleena knew, but sometimes fantasy was all she had.

Eleena hummed a sigh before tilting her head to look back at Malgus. Leaning down, he trailed a kiss across the length of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat as sparks flashed behind her eyes. Desperate to forget all the pain and tragedy and suffering she witnessed, even for a little while, she gave herself to the moment. 

But then the moment ended all too soon. Malgus went rigid, eyes one thousand lightyears away, and let a frustrated puff of air escape his nose that evolved into a low growl. Reaching to touch his face, Eleena looked into him, gauging if Veradun would return or if Malgus was here to stay. She was uncertain. 

Eleena watched two sides of a war clashing across Malgus’s face. Eleena decided it was up to her to change the tides of war.

Standing, she turned to face him. She would cradle his neck. She would drag him out of his war and save him as he had saved her. Wrapping her legs around his waist wasn’t easy with one arm stabilized. Malgus’s hands found her waist. He wouldn’t let her fall. From her position, Eleena knew she finally had his full attention. She would not waste it. She needed the comfort.

Kissing Malgus was like kissing fire. Intense, ever changing. He burned beneath Eleena, drinking her in like oxygen. Malgus’s grip tightened on her, pulling her body close into him. They were not human and Twi’lek, Sith and servant. They were lovers. Eleena was just as hungry for Malgus’s touch as he hers. 

Dizzy, delirious with passion, Eleena broke away for air. Their breath mingled as they both panted, looking into each other. The fire inside Malgus stoked into a raging heat. Eleena could feel her heart racing. 

How long had it been since they had looked at each other this way? How much time wedged itself between them, and how did that quantify in the equation of desperation that suffocated her every agonizing second their lips were apart? 

Eleena wanted to shatter every barrier that stood between them. To see it crumble and wash away to nothingness, and let nothing be between them ever again. Malgus’s bodysuit was an acceptable start.


	7. Chapter 7

“Cargo transfer,” Eleena tried to sound vaguely bored as she lied through her teeth. Kerse stood behind her, Eleena’s right hand as they pillaged the bleeding planet. They were all an extension of Darth Malgus’s will. She only hoped the particular extension she addressed, who ran the flight bay aboard Valor, knew nothing of Malgus’s banishment from the surface of Coruscant.

But of course, nothing with a shred of self-preservation stood in the way of Darth Malgus. They were granted three ships to collect their cargo. Malgus often sent Eleena to do his bidding. Usually she performed her duties alone, but just like her, Kerse was well known among the crew of Valor. Unlike her, however, Malgus had never killed anyone who got in Kerse’s way. That task was left to Kerse’s discretion. 

No longer requiring a sling, Eleena was mindful to keep her arms loosely to her sides. Looking nervous now would only stir suspicion. Something Malgus had said as he gave her this mission itched in her thoughts. Replaying the conversation behind her eyes, Eleena let her body go through the motions of their decampment while she analyzed.

She asked why he would send her instead of his Sith. With their separation at the hands of Adraas—and likely Angral as well—why would he be so ready to send her back to the lacerated planet? After the consummation of their reunion, not to mention the events of the day leading up to it, she passed out from absolute exhaustion. She didn’t have a chance to tell Malgus about the details of her skirmish with Adraas. It would have to wait. She had no brain power to spare for regret right now, and Malgus needed to be in a more…receptive mood.

“Because I can trust you,” was his reason. Of course he trusted her. He trusted her and she trusted him. That was their way for many years. It was the stress on “you” that gave her concern. Malgus knew full well that in the constant scrabble for power, nobody was to be trusted. He followed with, “I’m not yet entirely sure whom else I can trust. Not until things progress further.”

Could there be someone who wasn’t Sith, someone aboard Valor even, who Malgus suspected or expected treasonous action of? Eleena’s crew was handpicked by Malgus. He would not let danger befall her, but by Malgus’s words it wasn’t herself she was worried about. 

What was this progress he spoke of? He had been barred from the forefront of the focus of the Empire’s plotting. Coruscant’s atmosphere crackled around her as she sifted through names and faces, trying to figure out what it was that Malgus was alluding to. Soon she would have to put it aside to focus on her mission.

The tail of the convoy, tasked with retrieving the things on Malgus’s list that couldn’t fight back, broke formation to hunt its prey. Eleena ordered they splinter as a unit of three to gather the tech to Malgus’s specifications. The crew of four behind her, chosen by Kerse to suit the situation, peeled away next to gather prisoners. Eleena took charge, leading a hybrid mission of both. On Malgus’s list were two scientists. Malgus wanted their minds and their work, and with so much room for things to go wrong Eleena trusted only herself to see it through proper.

“Approaching coordinates,” Eleena called back to Kerse’s men, Heggs and Myrre. For Malgus to be certain the scientists would be back to work so soon after planetary bombardment Eleena had to assume there was a delicate nature to the study. Time sensitive, most likely. 

Earlier as she and Kerse briefed their men, it was decided that Heggs and Myrre would cover their backs as Kerse gathered the research and destroyed any copies the Republic had. Eleena would handle the scientists. Kerse didn’t like being sidelined to intel while Eleena handled the capture. Or perhaps he didn’t like taking instruction from an alien. 

Whatever the issue, Eleena didn’t have time for it. Kerse hid the tension well, for the most part. Better than most Imperials. Still he held a stiffness less dignified than respect. Eleena saw that stiffness often as Malgus worked with non-humans.   
Touching down, Eleena unclenched her aching jaw. It was time to get to work.

 

The lobby whispered with empty air still tinged with the scent of burning. Myrre took station near the entrance as Eleena, Kerse, and Heggs picked through to the heart of the building. The remnants of terrified fleeing littered the halls. Cold mugs of caf and upturned chairs suggested the building once pulsed with activity. Now only stale lights and stale air met them, the dullness of the death of a once great beast.

Setting the pace, Eleena wasted no time herding them to their destinations. The building was desolate. The sun was setting. Eleena wanted to return to Valor as soon as possible. 

Pivoting behind them, Heggs secured the hall. Two more doors and Kerse would break off to retrieve and destroy the data. At the end of the hall, right, into the next wing, Eleena would make her capture. Leaving the men behind, Eleena rounded the corner, finally away from Imperial eyes. 

Swallowed alive by the empty hall in the lifeless stasis of the abandoned building Eleena listened for the sounds of any beings taking refuge nearby. It was best there were no witnesses from either side.

Setting her spine as rigid as a durasteel rod, Eleena entered the laboratory. 

A Bothan sat at a well-worn desk. Behind him a human with a tight bun worried at her eyebrows, pulling at the hairs. Confusion contorted both their faces as Eleena locked the door behind her. Panic bubbled across the Bothan’s face, but as he tried to flee his partner gripped his shoulder firmly, forcing him back down into his chair.

“My associate is gathering your data,” Eleena began. She had yet to draw her weapon. The restraints she brought with her swayed heavily on her belt. “Your research is needed in service to the Empire.” The words fell out of her mouth like a frozen river. She hated the taste of them on her tongue.

The Bothan already showed signs of immense pressure. Studying him, she knew fear would be an easy motivator for him. The Empire would likely see no trouble from him, but the human had a fiery defiance in the set of her jaw. Eleena ignored the ache in her heart. Focus. Fight. Survive. 

Reluctance, dread, disgust…warring inside her, clutched at her in a greasy grip. It would be easy to let Kerse manhandle them into the shuttle, to turn her eyes away from the cruel reality of her task and pretend she had no choice. 

“But could we live with ourselves should we acquiesce?” the Bothan said, anxiety rippling his fur.

“You learn to if you want to survive.”

 

Three Standard Hours Later

The spaceport writhed with Imperial soldiers and Republic citizens strong-armed into service. All shuttles returned on time. Gears turning, turning, unending circles as a machine designed to orbit destruction in the gravity of war. Imperial precision.

A ship Eleena didn’t recognize hovered like a shadow peering over her shoulder. An Imperial drop ship too heavily modified to actually be in use by the Empire. Unease simmered at the back of her mind. It had been there since they arrived, but she never saw anyone exit or enter, inspect or even acknowledge. It only sat, waiting, like an unlit fuse.

“All prisoners accounted for. Get them aboard while I take inventory,” Eleena instructed one of Kerse’s men. The escort fell into neat rows, a harvest of toxic synchronization. Two stayed aboard while the rest of the squad returned to Kerse. 

Boarding the nearest shuttle, Eleena prepared herself for the long task of checking and rechecking their haul. Strange equipment spilled over in cascades of wires, screens, antennae…Eleena knew she would be working well into dawn.

Somewhere between the jungle of tech and library of data, Eleena took a moment to marvel at the beautiful minerals they logged vaguely as “viable samples.” Adegan crystals. Their value was not lost on Eleena, and Malgus’s words tickled again at the back of her mind. 

“I’m not sure whom else I can trust…”

Eleena trusted nobody. Tucking the case into a nondescript sack of cables, she rechecked the list Malgus gave her.

An alarm knifed between her eyes and the manifest, shattering her concentration.

“A hazardous substance spill has occurred in landing bay sixteen-B. There is significant danger. Please move rapidly toward the nearest exit.” 

Jogging down the ramp, Eleena saw Kerse and most of the squad already near the exit. Above, the launch doors cranked to peel themselves apart. A sliver of misty pre-dawn woke like a great, black eye.

“You two,” she shouted to the nearest members of her squad, “With me! Find masks and secure the cargo.” 

The suspicious ship didn’t stir. Still, Eleena wasn’t about to take any chances leaving Adegan crystals and the only copies of vital research unguarded. While the other beings in the port left, she would take advantage of the commotion to transfer them to the other ship which was now presumed empty.

Scanning the chaos, Eleena searched the walls for emergency supplies. Against the northern wall she found them. After strapping in to the mask, she found her men, tossing them one at a time before signaling to the ship.

Eleena didn’t know how much time they would have to make the switch. Hurrying in, she ignored the exhaustion creeping into her bones. She had to muscle through, persevere. Once the cleanup crew finished she could leave and be back in the safety of Valor.


	8. Chapter 8

A pestering ache blossomed at the base of Eleena’s skull. The alarm continued, barely muffled by the metal shell of the shuttle. 

“Bring me the disks from that compartment,” Eleena ordered, pointing. Shifting the contents of the sack she hid the Adegan crystals in to make room for the data, she cursed under her breath. The cleanup crew would be there any moment now, and she didn’t want witnesses to the transfer, Imperial, Republic or otherwise. Something was off, and unease crept into her gut.

There was no time to consult the manifest. Counting from memory, everything seemed to be in place. Throwing the sack over her shoulder, Eleena motioned for them to leave the shuttle. Her men fell into step, flanking her as they approached the exit.

All three of them stopped at the peak of the landing ramp. As they froze, so too did a pair of humans, one male and one female. Neither wore breathing masks. A droid tinkered with the ship Eleena had been wary of.

Time dangled in silk, an instant eternity as everything fell into place. 

Eleena’s body reacted before her mind could catch up, still taking in every detail. Her blasters materialized in her hands, unleashing the first salvo before her men brought their arms to bear. Beside her, Eleena could hear the impact of blaster fire on plasteel. Falling into her years of training and combat, instinct guided Eleena’s weapons.

She rained bolts on the man, but faster than perception the woman batted them away, metal cylinder in hand. The buzzing wound of light sliced in graceful, green arcs. Things just got much, much worse.

Before her, Eleena’s remaining backup fell dead. Reflected bolts tore through his mask, the sickly smoke of burnt flesh slithered into the air. Eleena couldn’t hear what the woman shouted to the man over her shoulder, but for whatever reason he disengaged. Considering her opponent, Eleena didn’t figure her odds improved much.

The Jedi stalked toward Eleena. Not the modest gait of a Light Side user. Glowering, lip curled, though she carried a green-bladed saber, Eleena knew the cadence of hate. The Jedi walked a tempo that belonged in the Sith academy on Korriban. Her eyes reflected the cold desert of the Sith world.

The Jedi’s skills were beyond Eleena’s in single combat. She had the age and confident grace of a learned Force user, a Jedi Knight likely. But Eleena wasn’t ready to give up yet. Backing up the ramp, taking aim, Eleena braced herself.

Before she could fire on the Jedi invisible claws ripped her blasters from her. An electric flood of adrenaline surged as Eleena, unarmed and alone, was confronted by the Jedi. She found her mouth forming a prayer, desperate and pleading.

“Veradun.”

The Jedi stepped over Eleena’s blasters towards her. There was no way Eleena could make it to the exit. Her men were dead and with the threat of toxic gases, the rest of the squad wouldn’t return until it was far too late. The shuttle had to have something, anything she could defend herself with. 

Eleena’s body shot toward the compartment, but before she could reach safety a blast of Force energy threw her into the bulkhead. Blackness and silver chased across her vision. Time surged forward—or perhaps the Jedi did—as Eleena turned over. 

Scrabbling to stand Eleena cast her mind out, thrashing in the mist of confusion to locate a weapon. Time skipped again, and the Jedi was before her, so close Eleena felt the heat-haze of fledgling hate that rippled off her. She was a totem of rage, newly fired, but a whisper of the kiln of Sith anger.

“You have come to kill me.” 

The Jedi said nothing. Her face journeyed across a spectrum of emotions. Discarding the hilt in her hand, the woman replaced it with one Eleena recognized. Mirroring the man it belonged to, the hilt was humble, plain. 

The clean minimalism was a pillar of antithesis to Malgus’s saber. Where the creator refused embellishments, Malgus sent a message with his weapon. If it was worth killing, it was worth over-killing. Instead of a double axe flanking the blade, a petal-lipped emitter led to the heart of the weapon.

The Jedi had yet to activate Ven Zallow’s lightsaber. 

“I see your anger,” Eleena tried to appeal to the Jedi’s philosophy. Tried to lull her into recoiling from the forbidden emotion. Despite the weapons’ differences, a lightsaber was a lightsaber. Eleena needed to keep it in the Jedi’s hands and not in her heart.

“You don’t know me, woman,” the Jedi spat. “Do not pretend that you do.”

The green blade unsheathed, splitting the air between them. Eleena felt her eyes widening. An appeal to philosophy had been a misstep, but not one grievous enough to end her life. 

“I don’t…” Eleena admitted. The one who holds the weapon is right. They are always right. “But I know anger when I see it. I know it quite well.” Eleena could feel her voice trying to crack around the memories of so many weapons…vibroblades and blasters, fists and claws and cunning. And sometimes weapons weren’t what was used against you, but what was taken away…

Eleena hadn’t thought about her in a long…long time. The one who planted the seed of defiance in Eleena. The one who set her on the path that led ultimately to Geonosis, and to Veradun.

“Anger is just pain renamed. This I know well, too,” Eleena continued as the Jedi watched her. Empathy was a blackened moon eclipsed by the planetary shadow of the Jedi’s anger, but an eclipsed moon still pulled tides. 

“And sometimes…the pain runs too deep.” Eleena’s memories shifted, leaving her origins to when she learned of true anger, and true pain.   
She realized in that moment, more so than any other, how angry and hurt and alone she always was. She fed herself the sugar-pills of false hope that Veradun would change for so long to try to cure her sadness, and the culmination of her efforts ended only with her in this shuttle, trapped with a vengeful Jedi and blood on her hands. For all the power Eleena told herself she felt growing, she was just as non-autonomous as the starving girl she thought she left behind on the dusty, horrid planet decades before.

The will to fight spilled out as the floodgates of hope crashed down for the last time. This was it. Truly empty, Eleena resigned herself to whatever would happen. 

“Pain drives you, yes?” she asked.

The Jedi was yet a novice to anger. Something battled inside her. She retrieved the saber of the Jedi Malgus murdered. She wanted justice, revenge, and Eleena did not blame her. With little practice on drawing strength from that anger, she didn’t yet have the heart to attack.   
Just like the Zabrak, this Jedi did not yet know how to sequence defense and attack together. Only one or the other. All it would take was a little push…

“You will kill me Jedi? Because of Darth Malgus? Something he did?” Eleena knew it to be true. The saber in the Jedi’s hands was a testament to the emotional suffering he caused her.

Anger billowed once more, but anger like a fire needed to be kindled. Hers was not yet set in stone.

“He hurt someone I loved,” the Jedi finally said.

Eleena felt herself laugh. Around the bitter crevasse of a smile words fell like unbidden teardrops from her lips. “He hurts even those he himself loves.” 

Eleena wondered if there was a freedom in death. “These men and their wars…” she said, shaking her head. Eleena looked into the Jedi’s eyes. “His name is Veradun, Jedi. And he would kill me if he knew I told you. But names are important.” 

“I don’t care what his name is,” the Jedi resumed her floundering in hatred. It began to fall through her fingers like burning sand, Eleena cold see. “You were there with him. In the attack on the temple. I saw it.”

“The Temple. Ah.” The memory stung, a ghost of the heaving sobs Eleena hid in the shelter of the hijacked ship. The Jedi couldn’t have seen that. Only the side of Eleena which followed Malgus into her sacred place and desecrated it.

“Yes, I was with him. I love him,” Eleena confessed. “I fight at his side. You would do the same.” 

As she knew she fed herself false hope, she knew, too, that Veradun was dead. Eleena told herself he was still in there as a way to hold on to the belief that things could get better. It had been a slow death. 

Eleena let her mind wander to the time he truly was there. Before Coruscant. Before Alderaan. That was what she wanted her last memories to be. Before she had to lie to herself. 

“Please be quick, a clean death, yes?” It was more than she deserved, but perhaps it could be reward for making it easy on the Jedi. 

Eleena offered no resistance. Overlaid above reality, Eleena watched her fondest memories playing over. 

“What is your name?” The voice was the Jedi’s, but it was also Veradun’s. Past and present, she felt herself in both iterations answering, “Eleena.”

The shuttle’s compartment completely dissipated. She felt smaller, more fragile. Nothing exited any more.

“What is your name?” she asked in a small voice. The man who rescued her, Eleena gathered, used a moniker. She wanted to know the true side of him. The man he was born as. 

Submerged in the ways of the Sith, she knew at some point he would have been “reborn” as this…Malgus. Malgus was a Sith, but what Sith truly would see her plight and rescue her from the shackles she wore? No, he may fool himself, but Eleena saw someone there he did not.

“It’s Veradun,” his hot breath cascaded across her neck. He clutched her close to him. The husky confession shivered across her skin and she smiled. 

“Veradun, you are my rescuer.”


	9. Chapter 9

Eleena was not accustomed to the feeling of safety. It was a strange new world she found herself in, but in his arms nothing could hurt her. Letting her fingertips trickle across his forearm Eleena tried his name again. 

“Veradun…” 

As the syllables rolled off her tongue his grip tightened around her, just for a moment. Eleena could feel his heart echoing in the cavern of his chest. This man brought a strange new world indeed, with strange new emotions. Slowly, like icicles in a new born spring, Eleena melted. The coldness of her life before disappearing one drop at a time.

As her breathing slowed and Eleena poured into sleep she felt the nebulous, dreamlike haze already around her before she floated into slumber. She felt as if she knew this moment simultaneously with thousands before, and thousands after. 

Everything shifted. Time fell over on top of itself. She was lying down, unfamiliar ground replacing the sheets of their bed. It was a battlefield. It was her first time, and her one thousand and first time living this day. She tried to trace a single linear timeline to herself, but ever more multitudes played before her.

She saw herself at the Republic depot, and planetside and within Veradun’s walls. Saw her sluggish toe catching under her…Eleena felt herself falling. Frozen needles embedded themselves in her gut, but instead of collapsing to the floor as she expected…a disarmingly gentle hand cradled her elbow, supporting her. 

The constant hardness in his eyes didn’t disappear, but in the privacy of his chambers Eleena saw the faintest glimmer of…something else. Something she couldn’t identify. 

The blast should have killed her. Opening her eyes, Eleena saw the air and debris warping, shimmering in ways she couldn’t comprehend. Standing between her and the roiling shrapnel, a black figure, a red wound in the air itself hummed, yellow eyes with the smallest light of softness only she could see. 

Veradun.

The air rippled again. Where once a Zabrak stood, now there was nothing. Eleena couldn’t tell if she was still outside or not. Everything shifted in the way dreams do, making sense at the time and yet with even a dusting of inspection completely nonsensical. Eleena knew there should be someone there, and yet she was not. 

She had just been engaged in a seemingly hopeless battle against an opponent who could twist reality to her will, just as Veradun could. Eleena had been fighting the Jedi from the temple, and then just as suddenly, she wasn’t. 

“Where is the woman? The Jedi?” Eleena said into the roiling dream mist. Before she could make sense of it, everything churned once again into a new scene of her memory. 

Foreign beeping answered Eleena. Gray walls loomed over her, and her head hurt like it was splitting from the inside out. The old, familiar paint of bruises and exhaustion, hunger and despair she knew so well registered in her self-catalogue of injury. 

Groggily lolling her head towards the sounds she heard, those yellow eyes watched her. She didn’t react. Eyes…eyes, yellow eyes. Like two suns burning into her. 

He was human, with a strong chin and the air of a man of command. She recognized him, and yet knew nothing of him. He was her lover, and a stranger. He was young and handsome, unscarred and silent and a singularity of every moment and every possibility in Eleena’s life that had yet to happen.

“Sit up.” His first order was easy enough. Or so Eleena thought. Weakly struggling to her elbows she finally noticed the lightness of her throat. The nakedness. Surprise guided her fingertips to her neck, but the only thing she could feel was the welted flesh of where she had been cut. 

He took her by the wrist. Not gently, but far from rough. Firm. In that touch there was infinite others. Eleena felt them all, one after another throughout her life in a jarring series of lightning strikes. On Coruscant, in his home, as they trained and fought and lived, a grip she knew well and had yet to ever feel before. 

Eleena dared a flash of a glimpse into his eyes again. She couldn’t identify the emotion there, but it wasn’t anger. Not wanting to risk changing that she grit her teeth and brought herself up to a full sit. Before releasing her he placed a glucose tablet into her hand. She hadn’t noticed he had it. 

“You will stay in this room,” he said. “Wait here until I return for you.” The imposing man of few words left her there, in what she identified as a bed. Behind the whispering zip of the sliding door and heavy feet followed silence. 

When he returned Eleena saw disgust and hate in his eyes like slinking beasts. Beasts temporarily placated by a successful hunt and blood-wetted maws. Eleena watched him, and he watched her, as if they both knew the true weight of the moment, knew it would be the irreversible fulcrum of chaos.

As he folded the familiar gem into her hand things began to swirl again, into the past or future she couldn’t tell. Eleena only caught the end of his promise to her.

“He will never hurt you again.” The words gave immeasurable gravity to her former master’s pendant like a collapsing star in her palm.

Opening her hand it was not a stone, but a blaster. Eleena studied the scorched lane. Black wounds like inverse starlines made their way center as her body learned the movements of aggression. Cartridge emptied, instruction for the day was over. Over and over again. She watched as her starlines became narrower and narrower, and her targets smaller and smaller. 

Eleena followed Veradun from the target range, saw every moment in succession as her shoulders rose, her posture stiffened. It was impossible to tell how many times Eleena watched every pivotal event in her life. She was hardly aware that’s what was happening at all. The longer she watched, the less Eleena recognized the woman she knew to be herself. 

Eleena saw herself following Veradun. Saw time after time the hard focused gaze she trained on his shoulders. She saw, too the times he faced her. The times she caught his gaze holding her like cradled smoke, and the times he taught her to be strong. Eleena saw the times he kissed her, working backwards until the very first. 

When Veradun finally made his move, he did not pin her. Her hands were free when his found her body, and she was startled by the softness of his touch. One arm circled Eleena’s waist, gently supporting her lower back, as his other hand cradled her neck. Veradun held her like this for a beat, and while she was startled, Eleena did not feel fear.

Eleena felt herself in that moment saying what her heart felt before she knew how to articulate it. In the count down of passion from every moment until this day she felt the words as her lips met his. 

“I knew you loved me.”

Her fingers tingled as they found his face. Veradun leaned in, closing the infinite distance millimeters between them. His kiss was excruciating pleasure, delicious agony. Love and hate and passion and war and freedom and death. His lips moved slow and sweet and he didn’t have to hold her there except to tether her to the physical plane. But as that plane dissipated and she slipped through his fingers, memory convoluted into dream or premonition. 

Or nightmare.

The orbit of Eleena’s gaze finally stabilized. The face she knew melted under decades of turmoil and war. It was a face Eleena no longer recognized, but he held her just as he did as he kissed her, cradling her while Eleena’s hand cupped his face. The flashes of memories overlaying one another no longer ran their course, and time once again trickled in a linear path. 

Trickling, too, from her lover’s eyes were tears. Eleena hadn’t known Veradun was even capable of crying, and yet above her hot splashes crashed against her cheek. His tears boiled across Eleena’s skin.

Eleena couldn’t remember how she got there, or what happened. She had to still be dreaming. 

“What is wrong, my love?” she asked. Her throat was dry. Behind Veradun was nothingness, as if they were suspended in time and space alone, away from everything as she had always wanted. 

Just as it had after the sacking of the temple, Eleena’s hearing hollowed out. She tried to read the words on his lips, but the strained sneer of what agonized him pulled them too taut. His last words to her passed through her memory like a shadow…

“I’m going hunting.”

She didn’t understand. Blackness deeper than his cloak, emptier than space, as hopeless as death poured into her vision as Eleena tried to grasp what was happening. Her fingers tingled, blood running cold as panic began to clutch at her heart.

“Veradun…” Eleena tried to call out.

Eleena felt his hands leave her body. He disappeared, obscured by the heavy darkness that closed in around her, and once more Eleena was alone. 

She saw a light, but before she could reach out to it, it came to her. Could its glow lead her back? She wanted to go back. Somewhere, deep in her heart she knew at the end of the light she would see him, and things could go back like how she saw in her dreams.

The light came closer, closer…and opened a black hole inside her. Eleena’s heart collapsed like a star, a black singularity of pain like she’d never known before. And there, just as she had known, at the end of the light was Veradun. 

Eleena looked into him. Always at the end of light was darkness. They were on opposite ends of the light that tricked her. With the last gasp she held in her lungs she tried to tell him, but the words caught in her throat…

“We were deceived…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
